Match postponement angers officials

Wasps are still marooned at the bottom of the Premiership after a row with Gloucester over the late postponement of yesterday's match at Loftus Road. Gloucester's claim that they were not prepared to put their players at unnecessary risk in pursuit of the win which would have put them clear in second place, raised questions over Wasps' undersoil heating.

While the London club's rugby director Nigel Melville considered the pitch playable, Gloucester owner Tom Walkinshaw called it 'disgraceful'.

Walkinshaw said: 'The middle of the pitch is frozen. The groundsman says their undersoil heating switches off automatically at five degrees centigrade.

'At the time it was showing seven degrees but the pitch simply wasn't playable.' His team's refusal to go out left Manchester referee Nigel Yates with no alternative but to call the match off.

'I am very unhappy about it,' Melville said. 'You don't think in our position that I would put any of my players at risk. I am convinced the game should have been played.' His counterpart, Philippe Saint-Andre, saw it very differently. 'The pitch is clearly frozen and we would have been unable to scrummage on it,' he said.

'I find it incredible that anyone should think it was playable.' Bristol's game at home to Northampton suffered a similar fate, being called off just one hour before kick-off because of a frozen pitch. Bristol wanted to play and Northampton didn't so referee Paul Adams took the final decision that the pitch was unsafe, even though it had been covered for the past few days.